236 AMERICAN GRAPE GROWING 



the frying pan, washed down with scalding tea or coffee, 

 or whisky and poor brandy, so long will it continue to 

 be a nation of dyspeptics. When in place of these, good, 

 simple, wholesome fare is their daily food, and sound, 

 pure, light wines their daily beverage, we may hope for 

 an improvement in the public health. Especially will 

 this be likely if the dietetic change is accompanied by 

 judicious exercise, walking and horseback riding. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 



WINE MAKING IN CALIFORNIA. 



This is quite a different matter from making wine in 

 the States east of the Eocky mountains. The grapes 

 are of a widely different species, and the climate is 

 wholly unlike any other on the continent. Our dry 

 summers mature our grapes and develop a sufficient 

 amount of sugar to make good, sound, dry wine, without 

 resort to the practices of Gall, Petiol and others, so nec- 

 essary in the East. Our grapes do not contain an excess 

 of either flavor or acids, and usually supply a perfect 

 must, which needs no manipulation aside from being 

 well fermented and kept in a cool cellar, to develop into 

 a good, sound wine. We have suffered more from im- 

 proper and interrupted fermentation than from all other 

 causes. It is those which have given a bad reputation 

 to our lower grades of wine and led to the hasty conclu- 

 sions arrived at by some of our soi disant experts that 

 " wine could be made anywhere, even under an old shed 

 or an oak tree." Such talk has done more harm to the 

 industry than all the competition it has met with from 

 abroad. In a State where every little valley has its own 

 climate, and where the product and temperature vary so 



